Labor Laws and Unions: Oshkosh Defense

Today’s unions collectively see over $10 billion in revenue a year from dues payments. Most of the current workers in the unions have never voted to instate the union in the first place and yet they are forced [The passive voice is a form of "be" (are) and a participle (forced). Over-use of the passive voice can make paragraphs officious and tedious to read. Prefer the active voice. For example, passive voice = The paper was completed on time. Active voice = the student completed the paper on time. See Center for Writing Excellence > Tutorials & Guides > Grammar & Writing Guides > Active & passive voice] to become members at the expense of getting a job of his or her qualifications. This begs the question regarding whether or not unions are still as effective as they once were and whether or not these unions infringe on the employee’s rights at present. This discussion will determine what uses unions have in today’s business world.

Oshkosh Defense Background

Oshkosh Defense is a subsidiary of Oshkosh Corporation. They generate military vehicles for government bodies throughout the world. They have created more than 100,000 tactical vehicles for a full range of missions, and they proudly tout their full life [Use "their full lives"] -cycle sustainment and services plan included in the purchase of their vehicles. Oshkosh Defense employs nearly 4,000 workers in its Oshkosh, Wisconsin, facilities. Oshkosh Defense in 1938 had 18 workers inducted as members of a local union: United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 578, (UAW Local 578, 2012). At present they have more than 3,000 members in its closed shops.

Unions

Benefits

There are some benefits to joining a union. Some of these benefits include the ability to work under collective bargaining and obtaining representation. It also allows the worker a channel to expel their [Check pronoun agreement--if "their" refers to "worker" (or a singular subject), it should be singular, too (his or her)] disagreements or agreements with a company without fear of losing his or her job.

Other aspects that are [Writing suggestion: rewrite the sentence to remove "that are"] beneficial for union workers are their job security if one has achieved seniority, increased benefits, for example, insurance, and the rules of how the company can handle certain situations like layoffs are all [Writing suggestion: "All" or "all of" used as an intensifier very often can be removed with no loss of meaning] put down so everyone is aware of the policies.

Unionization Process

The Wagner Act of 1935 basically acknowledges that it is an employee’s right to join a union to protect his or her rights. Once a person or group of people decides to join a union there is one of three things that happen.

1. Employee(s) can choose to start it themselves, this includes them soliciting others to join as well or sign a petition.

2. Employee(s) contact an established union and asked that they be allowed to become members.

3. Employee(s) are contacted [Passive voice ] by established unions and asked to join.

This process generally will continue until the supporters have reached 30% membership of the employees of a particular corporation.

Collective Bargaining

As stated above one benefit of joining a union is the ability to collectively bargain. Collective bargaining is simply where a union has an issue with insurance, for example. They would have to announce the issue to the members to a vote on and if 50% of its members approve this change they will then [consider removing "then"] go to the company with their demands.

In The News

Oshkosh Defense was recently in the news for a contract dispute with the union’s workers. Oshkosh’s lawyers and the union’s negotiators came to an impasse over wages, insurance, and temporary workers, (Barrett, September 26th, 2011). This dispute lasted for over a month until they were finally able to come to a consensus. Because Oshkosh Defense strictly see’s revenue from government contracts this could be detrimental should it ever happen again. With government contracts there is little wiggle room for price negotiations and even less for the time frame in which the product is needed [Passive voice ] . So this can become an issue again if a union strike should ever occur like this most recent quarrel.

Conclusion

Some people thought that the quarrel would lead to no more unions for Oshkosh Defense; however, they worked it out without breaking any laws or infringing on any employee’s rights. However, tensions continue to grow for unions in this country and in the future they may not be able to work out their demands.

After discussing how to create a union, what the process is to become a formal union, and how [remove the comma unless the following is the last element in a series] they bargain one can fully appreciate the bothersome task it can become to establishing a union. Oshkosh Defense needs to look to the future and determine whether or not they can balance the needs of the company with the needs of the union, presently unions are still considered [Passive voice ] an asset for Oshkosh Defense.